Details to support your expository writing about the riots in Los Angeles in 1992 and their underlying social causes.

1. “What we see depends mainly on what we
look for.”
--John Lubbock
Pacesetter: Be the Change

2. Or two
faces?
Is it a
vase?

7.  The switch between the B and the 13 doesn’t
come from assembling the figure from different
portions of the perceptual stream. Both the B and
the 13 are constructed from the same raw data.
 The difference lies in the surrounding context.
 When you read horizontally, you interpret that
data in the context of the A and C and see a B.
When you read vertically, the same information
(now in the context of the 12 and 14) becomes a
13.
From http://somatic.com/blog/2007/12/context/

8.  The perceptual principle here is that
your experience of a situation
(the B/13, in this case)
depends on the context within
which you interpret that
situation.
From http://somatic.com/blog/2007/12/context/

9. Most people
say they see a
large white
triangle on top
of a large black
triangle and
three black
circles.
In fact, there
is no large
white triangle
and no large
black triangle.
They don’t
exist.

10.  In this example, most people compose their
experience as a way of explaining the
information…
 we have a bias in favor of simpler and
more familiar explanations over more
complex and unfamiliar explanations.
From http://somatic.com/blog/2007/12/context/

11.  A white triangle sitting on top of a black triangle
and three circles provide a simpler and more
familiar explanation here than do the less familiar
partial circles.
 It’s much easier to experience a known
stereotype that matches the incoming data
than to experience it as something new and
unique.
From http://somatic.com/blog/2007/12/context/

12.  Composing your experience requires a constant
stream of unconscious choices about what
information to use and how to assemble that
information into the perceptual images that
become your experience.
 These examples have been simple and
uncluttered, making it easy to isolate some of
underlying perceptual principles that guide those
choices.
 Real-life situations and perceptions are more
complex, however, involving many things
happening at once.From http://somatic.com/blog/2007/12/context/

13.  Watch from the beginning to 1:53. Please excuse
the birds chirping and the guy’s weird bare foot.
 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QawsSBEI7PQ&f
eature=player_embedded#at=321
 You may have seen this one, or one like it.
 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ahg6qcgoay4
 And this last one:
 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IGQmdoK_ZfY

14.  As with the virtual triangle, subjects fitted what
they saw into a familiar pattern. As with the
B/13, the context of the experiment (playing
cards, with four standard suits) determined what
they saw.
 As with the faces/vase, what they saw depended
on what they focused on; those who focused on
color saw red spades as hearts, those who
focused on shape saw them as spades.
From http://somatic.com/blog/2007/12/context/

15.  The new element not present in earlier examples
is that the subjects filtered out and threw away
information that didn’t fit their preexisting
conceptual categories.
 Now: think about your paper.
 What ideas from this PowerPoint can you use to
explain people’s behavior in the Twilight: Los
Angeles, 1992 case study?
From http://somatic.com/blog/2007/12/context/

16.  Relate these ideas to images and events in
Twilight: Los Angeles, 1992.
 Who had “preexisting conceptual categories”?
 How did the characters’ backgrounds and
experiences influence what they saw and felt?
 Discuss an example of the same “raw data” being
interpreted differently by different characters.
 Discuss a character who seemed to have been able
to recognize the “six of red spades”—someone who
was able to see past his or her preconceptions.
From http://somatic.com/blog/2007/12/context/